Sperm Whale

For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last… And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan.
—Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick,” Chapter 55

Sperm Whale (Physeter macrocephalus)

Average Hit Points: 62 (female), 83 (male)

Average Damage Bonus: Because a whale remains mostly submerged when it attacks, its large STR and SIZ scores do not bestow the usual damage bonus. (Otherwise, an average bull would have a damage bonus of +9D6, and very few whalemen would survive any encounter!) Instead, some attacks are modified by additional Size damage, usually SIZ/100 rounded down. See “Combat” for details.

Average Build: 12-14. Male sperm whales average between 50-60 feet in length and 45-60 tons in weight. Females are smaller, averaging between 28-38 feet in length and 10-18 tons in weight. The whale’s statistics reflect this sexual dimorphism, with CON reflecting the difference in weight, and SIZ the difference in length. Roughly speaking, a whale’s length in feet may be calculated by dividing SIZ/10. This may also be used to establish how many barrels of oil may be obtained when the whale is tried-out; although the actual number would be a little higher.

Move: 8. A whale swims at 3-4 mph under normal conditions, 8-10 mph when hurried, and 20-30 mph when enraged.

Skills
Breach 50%, Listen 45%, Pitch-Pole 30%, Swim 95%

Armor: Blubber coating: 10 points against bludgeon attacks; 6 points against slashing attacks; 4 points against bullets, spades, and general piercing attacks; 0 points against harpoons and lances.

Alternate names: Physeter macrocephalus, Spermaceti Whale, Parmaceti, Cachalot, Leviathan

Combat

Attacks per round: 1 (tail flip, tail sweep, tail smack, bite, ram)
Sperm whales are generally peaceful creatures. If attacked by a boat, a whale is more likely to swim away than fight back. This is expressed as a simple “Chance of Fighting” percentage:

See “Hunting Whales” for details. When a whale decides to fight, it usually brings its tail into play. The flukes of a whale are muscular and nimble, and may attack in three ways: flipping, sweeping, and smacking. More rarely, a whale may decide to bite; and most rare of all, it can use its head as a battering ram. The Keeper must determine which attack is the most appropriate given the situation.

Tail Flip
The most common attack, a tail flip occurs when a whale dives underwater, bringing its flukes to the surface in a sudden upwards motion. If a whaleboat happens to be in the way, it may be rocked, flipped over, or even tossed into the air. Every man in the boat must make a Dodge roll or take 1D3 HP damage and be flung from the boat. The number of failed rolls determines the magnitude of the attack:

See “Man Overboard!” in “Hunting Whales” for rules on overboard sailors. A tail flip can only be performed once per sounding.

Tail Sweep
During a tail sweep, the whale clumsily swipes its tail across the water, causing 1D8 points of damage to anything—and anyone—in its path. Every man in the boat must make a Dodge roll or be knocked from the boat. A tail sweep can only be repeated after a full round of recovery from a previous attack.

Tail Smack
An angry whale may raise its flukes into the air and smack them down like a man swatting a fly. This fearsome attack causes 2D6 + (SIZ/100) points of damage, and may easily stave a whaleboat. Anyone in the range of the tail smack is allowed a Dodge roll to halve the damage, with a Hard success escaping injury altogether. A tail smack can only be repeated after a two rounds of recovery from a previous attack.

Bite (mnvr): A sperm whale’s narrow jaw is located underneath its head. This means the whale must approach its target from underwater, or roll up-side down to bring its bite into play. This is called “jawing back,” and is a terrifying sight to behold! Both approaches take five rounds to launch; but once jawed back, the whale may attack every other combat round. The bite of a sperm whale is much feared by sailors, and can easily crush a boat or tear the limbs from a man’s body. To calculate the damage from a bite attack, the Size of the whale is divided by 100. This number is rounded down and used as a D4 multiplier. So a SIZ 560 whale does 560/100 = 5.6 = 5D4 damage. If a kill is obtained with a single chomp, the Keeper may allow the victim a Luck roll. A success trades death for dismemberment: some body party is surrendered as the cost of survival.

Swallowing Whole
The whale fishery delights in horrifying tales of sperm whales swallowing men whole, often told to greenhorns during a gam! Despite the fate of Jonah, the mouth a sperm whale is too small for such a Biblical feat.

Ram (mnvr): A whale may propel himself through the water and use its head as a battering ram. Only directed at large objects such as ships and whaleboats, this maneuver requires 200 yards of free space and 10 rounds to launch. Damage is determined by velocity: 1D4 HP for every 5 mph, plus a SIZ/100 damage bonus. If the whale rams an object traveling towards him, the object’s speed is added to its own when calculating damage. For instance, a SIZ 66 whale moving at 25 mph rams a ship moving towards it at 10 mph; that’s 35 mph total, or 7D4+6 HP damage. The impact also harms the whale, who takes only 1 HP/5 mph damage in return—after all, its head is mostly blubber!

Ramming a Whaling Ship
It is exceedingly rare for a whale to ram a whaling ship. In the recorded history of the whale fishery, there’s only a handful of incidents in which an enraged sperm whale directed its anger against the ship itself. The most famous is the sinking of the Essex in 1820, in which an 80-foot sperm whale stove the ship on its second pass. One of the primary inspirations for Melville’s Moby-Dick, the attack was quite famous in its day, and is recounted in Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea. In other words, the Keeper should reserve this attack for later in the campaign, using it to distinguish the more aggressive nature of Mocha Dick and the Black Leviathans.

Description

The sperm whale is among the largest and most intelligent creatures on earth. Adult males have been reported exceeding 85 feet in length and 90 tons in weight. No creature has ever evolved a larger brain, and with a lifespan of 70 years, the sperm whale can outlive its only true predator—human beings. They also bear the terrible majesty of solitude: sperm whales are the last surviving species of the genus Physeter, passed into history before the first human hunter thrust his spear into a bellowing mammoth. Truly, the sperm whale has earned its Biblical title, Leviathan.

Physiology
A sperm whale’s most distinguishing feature is its prodigious head, a rectangular edifice comprising one-third the creature’s gross weight. This head is little more than a giant tank of oil, encased in blubber and perched above the whale’s downward-sloping skull. The oil contained in this reservoir is the whale’s most precious product: clear, pure spermaceti, so-named because early hunters believed it was semen.

Like killer whales and dolphins, sperm whales are “toothed” whales. A sperm whale has a long, narrow jaw running beneath its head; somewhat like a thumb folded against a palm. The lower jaw is lined with teeth, 6-inch cones of “ivory” that fit into corresponding sockets grooved along the upper jaw. The sperm whale feeds on squid of all sizes, which it hunts thousands of feet beneath the ocean’s surface.

A sperm whale’s eyes are located far back on either side of its head, with nearly-imperceptible ears positioned behind each eye. The placement of its eyes gives the whale a pair of blind spots, one in front of its head and the other behind its flukes. When sensing danger, the whale may thrust its head vertically from the water like a fleshy tower. It then uses its flukes to “mill” its head in a complete circle, thoroughly examining the immediate environment. Whalers call this maneuver “pitch-poling,” and it’s not a good omen! (If a whale successfully pitch-poles, the Keeper may add a +1D10 bonus die to the whale’s next set of rolls.)

Sounding
A sperm whale can remain submerged underwater longer than most other whales. An adult male may stay underwater for up to an hour, and may travel to a depth of 3500 feet! The reason for this is dietary: that’s where the squid are found. After a whale sounds, the surface of the water tales on a smooth, oily appearance called a “slick.” (English whalemen call this a “glip.”) Whether an optical illusion arising from wave interference, residual oil from the whale’s excreta, or mucous from the spout is unknown; but it only appears where the whale turns flukes. Superstitious whalemen claim a slick has a preternatural connection to the whale that produced it, and passing over the slick may alert the submerged Leviathan. (Whether this belief has basis in truth is up to the Keeper; but may require the mate to make an opposed Power roll with the whale to avoid this psychic link?)

Spouting
A sperm whale respires through an S-shaped blowhole located at the front-left of its head. The spout of a sperm whale has a distinctive, bushy shape and forward-jetting angle. A whale’s spout is not pure seawater. It’s a mix of water trapped in the whale’s blowhole passage mixed with vaporized water from the whale’s lungs. A whale’s spout contains an acrid, foul-smelling substance that stings the eyes and irritates the skin—whalemen avoid getting in range of the spout. In fact, many experienced whalemen claim they can smell a sperm whale long before the creature is sighted.

Prior to sounding, the whale must “get its spouts in,” respiring one time for each minute it plans to remain underwater. The bigger the whale, the longer it can stay under. Whalers use a simple rule-of-thumb: a whale must spout once per foot of length to stay submerged for that many minutes. For instance, a 60’ whale must spout 60 times to stay submerged for an hour.

Gaming Mechanics
Anyone trapped in a whale’s spout must make a Constitution roll or take 1 HP of irritation damage. At the Keeper’s discretion, a sailor with a Whalecraft over 75% earns a +1D10 bonus die on any rolls to detect a distant sperm whale. An unperturbed whale can stay down for as many minutes as SIZ/10; but first it must have spouted that many times. A scared, or “gallied” whale is a whale that has not gotten its spouts in, and can only stay submerged for a duration of CON/10. A harpooned whale, however, can only stay submerged for 1/4 its remaining hit points. A whale with 10 HP or fewer cannot sound.

Community
Sperm whales share a well-defined sense of community, and often travel in pods or “schools” of eight or more whales. This may consist of a single male bull, his harem of cows, and their family of calves. Occasionally large pods are discovered containing multiple harems. These groups are arranged in rings, the cows nursing their calves while their bull swims around the perimeter of the ring protecting his family. Being somewhat solitary, males often abandon the females for extended periods of time, cruising different latitudes and presumably reliving their bachelor days. For this reason, the majority of whales slaughtered by hunters are females. Once sure-fire way to catch a cow is to harpoon her calf—mother whales are willing to die to protect their young, and frequently do exactly that. Calves may be captured, or allowed to survive and grow bigger.

Sometimes a young bull attempts to wrest a harem away from an aging bull—such battles are brutal, and whalers tell of witnessing legendary battles. If the older bull loses, he surrenders his harem. This “lone bull” remains solitary forever more, battle-scarred and possessing a certain amount of elder intelligence.

Communication
Sperm whales communicate using clicking sounds that travel miles across the ocean. They hunt by echolocation, honing in on squid through high-frequency “creaks.” These sounds are produced by a pair of “monkey lips” located just below the blowhole. Sperm whales are surprisingly articulate, and can recognize each other by “name.” They are also the loudest creatures on earth, producing sounds reaching 230 decibels!

Sport
When left unmolested, whales enjoy sporting and playing. Two types of activity are particularly known to sailors: breaching and lobtailing.

Breaching
By gathering the right amount of momentum, a whale can explode through the water and lift itself into the air. Usually done to remove parasites—or just for the fun of it— breaching may be “half” or “full.” During a half-breach, the whale lifts partially from the water; during a full-breach, a whale may leap completely free of the water. As a sperm whale is too large to dive head-first into the water like a dolphin, it usually lands on its belly or flanks with a tremendous splash. Anyone caught under a whale as it breaches is in trouble, taking 4D6 points of damage for a half-breach, and 8D6 points of damage from a full-breach.

Lobtailing
Occasionally a whale aligns its body head-down in the water and raises its flukes some 25-35 feet into the air, smacking them repeatedly across the water. Whalers call this “lobtailing.” Lobtailing produces a sound that can be heard by miles, and churns the surrounding water into a vortex of foam. It’s exclusively done in leisure, and never in danger—though a fighting whale may always use its tail as a weapon!

Whale Products

Of course, the primary virtue of sperm whales to nineteenth-century humans is not their sense of intelligence or community—it’s the precious oil inside their bodies. To whalers, a sperm whale is a floating barrel of money.

Whale Oil
The average sperm whale can produce some 1800 gallons of oil. This is usually measured in “barrels.” A cow may yield between 20-35 barrels, while larger bulls may reach up to 60 barrels. The largest bulls—which by 1844 have been mostly slaughtered—may exceed 80 or more barrels! Three types of oil are rendered from the sperm whale:

Blubber Oil
Blubber oil is produced by boiling the blubber encasing the whale’s body. This is the first oil that’s tried-out, and comprises the bulk of the barrels brought back to shore.

Junk Oil
Despite its name, junk oil is better in quality than blubber oil. Its name comes from its location—the “junk” is the oil-rich section of head between the whale’s sloping skull and the valuable “case.” Junk oil is tried-out separately and marketed at a higher price.

Spermaceti Oil
Located inside the whale’s head is the “case,” a blubber-lined reservoir holding some 500 gallons of spermaceti. The namesake of the whale itself, spermaceti is clear, pure, and aromatic. Five times more valuable than the blubber oil, spermaceti is used to fabricate candles of the highest quality. It’s also used in cosmetics. Fresh spermaceti has a somewhat milky odor, and its resemblance to semen has already been noted. Once it’s been removed from the warm interior of the case, it begins to solidify into a white, waxy substance.

Other Products
A sperm whale is also valuable for its teeth and bone, often referred to as “ivory” and used in a variety of products. Sperm whales also produce a valuable substance called ambergris.

Teeth
Made from a substance softer than human enamel, the tooth of a sperm whale is easy to carve, and is greatly valued by skrimshanders. Sometimes exceeding 7-8 inches in length, a sperm whale tooth provides a ready canvas for artistic sailors, and may be inscribed with human figures, scenes of home, or images of nautical life.

Bone
When most people mention “whalebone,” they’re usually referring to baleen, a flexible, keratinous substance found in the mouths of right whales, bowhead whales, and other “baleen whales.” Evolved to filter krill, baleen is used to manufacture umbrella ribs, buggy whips, stays, and corset boning. Toothed whales do not have baleen. When “whalebone” is taken from a sperm whale, it comes from its actual jawbone, and is used to fashion objects such as tillers, canes, and peg-legs. The bones of a sperm whale are so impregnated with oil they remain “greazy” decades after being boiled and bleached!

Ambergris
From the French for “grey amber,” ambergris is a gelatinous substance with the odor of lilacs. It forms in the alimentary canal of a whale suffering from a puncture or irritation, usually caused by a squid beak. Like a pearl, it forms around the irritant to protect the flesh of the whale itself. Also like a pearl, ambergris is quite valuable, and is used as a fixative for perfumes. If left alone, the ambergris-encased beak is usually voided by the whale; although occasionally it forms a dangerous or fatal blockage. Ambergris is found only in sick whales, although it occasionally washes up on shore. It generally sells for more than $150/pound.

White Leviathan > Bestiary
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Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 26 August 2023
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
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